Broken Dreams
by AngelicTrinity
Summary: When I literally returned from the depths of my soul, I had no memories of who I was or what happened in my past. But apparently I live in a violent and chaotic world called Wonderland where everyone and everything is out to kill one another. [Reincarnation SI-OC fic]
1. Prologue I

**This is the final product. I hope.**

 **I don't own anything in the HNKNA fandom. I do, however, own the main character and the concept for this story.**

 **Edit: Notice that there has been quite the change in this.**

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 **Prologue I**

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" _Why didn't you save me?"_

" _How could you?"_

" _Why?"_

" _You promised…"_

" _Liar!"_

" _You said you would protect us!"_

" _You didn't protect us…"_

" _Why…?"_

" _Why?!"_

" ** _WHY?!"_**

The voices constantly haunted my sleep and waking dreams. In this black abyss where time was non-existent and the only thing around me was darkness, they were the only things other than my own thoughts that kept me company.

Along with the images of a burning city and tower.

In what I knew was a twisted sense of irony the voices and the violent, burning scenarios were what kept me sane in this endless void. They prevented me from drowning in the silence that would have completely cut off my senses. They managed to ground and prevent me from being consumed by the shadows. Though admittedly it almost wasn't worth it.

The very thing that was preventing me from being completely cut off from everything were the echoes of people's suffering. Sometimes I even wondered if I would be better off without them, even if it meant it would just be me and my own thoughts.

And the ever lasting silence and darkness.

But the burning city with the tower and the voices that were full of anger and anguish were the only things I had left of my past. They were the only clues to my identity.

When I had woken up in this void and become aware of… what was around me, it didn't take me long to realize that I had no memories.

I had no complete memory of my past.

I had no memory of who I was.

I couldn't even remember my own name.

And I didn't remember how I ended up here in the first place.

All I had after I became fully aware were the voices and the fragmented images of a burning city. But I knew that they both meant something to me.

Being stuck in an abyss surrounded by nothing but darkness with only voices and fleeting images to stave off the isolation made for a dismal existence, but I didn't have the energy to care. I haven't cared about anything for a long time.

The only things I've done ever since I had woken up was listen to the voices calling out to me or fall into dreamless sleeps. Sleeping without dreams was the only thing that I looked forward to. It was my only relief of having to avoid looking at the abyss's never ending darkness and to not be always constantly listening to the voices. It was the only thing to prevent me from completely losing my sanity.

Perhaps that was why I clung to those two things so tightly. Because I had nothing else. And despite how numb and near apathetic I had become, the very thought of having nothing terrified me.

Because if I had nothing, not even a name to be called by, then why did I even exist in the first place?

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 **Edit: To those re-visiting this chapter you will notice that it has shortened. A lot. I have decided to take the other half and turn it into the second prologue. Please tell me what you think through reviews, alright? Reviews are pure love!**


	2. Prologue II

**Continuation of the last part. There should be one or two more parts to go before I finally hit the story.**

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 **Prologue II**

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I had long given up on leaving my prison of eternal darkness.

It was a nihilistic thought that spoke of giving up without a fight, but I saw no reason to think otherwise. I was constantly surrounded by darkness that stretched on for all of eternity. All I knew was that I 'existed' and that I was 'somewhere' which could be defined by the simple words of 'dark' and 'madness' inducing. I had never been given any hope of escaping this hell, and I thought that it was stupid that I would even have a sliver of a chance of being free.

Resigned and depressing to think so, but I would rather be resigned to my fate than be driven mad by delusion and despair by the crushing weight of reality. While I had no memories of my past, myself, much less the kind of person I was prior to memory loss and waking up in this dreary place, I instinctively knew that I was not the kind of person who tried to deceive myself. The very thought of deluding myself or trying to deny my reality no matter how harsh it was made me balk with such strong disgust that it surprised even _me._ I eventually figured it wasn't something I looked too kindly upon and I was remembering it unconsciously.

But I digress. I long accepted that I would never escape the darkness and that the only things that would keep me company in this abyss would be my own thoughts, the voices, and fleeting images of a city with a tower on fire.

And so I slept.

Not that I had a lot of choice in the matter anyway.

I could either stare into the abyss while the abyss stared back at me...

...or I could sleep and pass whatever time passed in this place.

For a long time (?) I followed a pattern in this forever lasting damnation. Sleep, dream, and stare into the abyss. It was a repeating cycle I was dedicated to until one day _she_ came to this dark place where there was no light and hope.

In a place that threatened to drown me at every turn, she was the life boat in the cold waters. She was the light to the darkness.

And finally she was my salvation and the sliver of hope and optimism I had been unable to crush no matter how many times I tried.

The small wish I had of finally being able to leave this place despite all of my pessimistic expectations.

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 **I would have made this longer, but it honestly did not seem right to go any further than this. Hopefully the next chapter will be the last part so that I can finally start on the story, dammit.**

 **Anyways, don't forget to leave a review! Reviews are very much appreciated!**


	3. Prologue III

**The final and last prologue. About damned time!**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own the Diamond/Joker/Clover/Heart no kuni no Alice series. I do, however, own the character whose view point we're seeing the story through.**

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 **Prologue III**

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 _"I finally found you."_

I had been coming out of one of my usual phases of dreamless sleep when I heard those words. They didn't register immediately in my mind since I was still half-asleep and when they did, I dismissed it as one of the voices that kept haunting me.

Except... I had never heard that voice before and at this point I was well acquainted with the voices that demanded answers to questions I didn't know and kept calling out to me. But at the same time I instantly knew that voice as well. My mind blanked at the complete contradiction.

Regardless, who did that voice belong to?

When I finally snapped out of the daze that was the transition from sleep to wakefulness, the first thing I saw a pair of legs right in front of me. When I blinked twice and the legs hadn't disappeared, my head automatically shot upwards so fast that my neck hurt and I suddenly found myself staring face to face with a girl. I felt my jaw drop when I realized that I was looking at something else other than the darkness that was a constant invasion. That I was looking at _someone_ for the first time in-

I didn't know how long I was trapped in this hell.

"Wh-who are you?" I stammered, bewildered at the sight of this girl. I was gawking at her like an idiot, but I couldn't bring myself to care. Was I actually staring at another girl or had I finally lost it and started to hallucinate?

Though to be fair, hallucinating was not completely out of the question. Staring into the dark for too long did some pretty weird things to your state of mind- something I knew well from experience. This place was probably driving me more insane that I thought. Otherwise why would I be seeing a girl standing right in front of me when I had never ever seen anyone else in this dark abyss before?

"Have we met?" I asked without thinking before cringing at what I said as my logical and rational side smacked the back of my head at my stupidity. I hadn't meant to suddenly say that out loud nor did I know where it had come from either- it was a spur of the moment thing. Because what kind of person says 'Have we met' right after they demanded their identity?

Well I did, apparently.

Because despite having no memories, I instinctively knew this person. I didn't know what she was to me, just that I had known her all of my life even if I couldn't remember _why_. The strange thing about the wave of nostalgia that had suddenly come over me is that I instantly knew that I hadn't seen her for a very long time.

The first thing that I noticed about her was that she was short. She was either just under five feet or a little more than that. Her skin was a light shade of brown that complemented her black hair that went past her shoulders and matching dark eyes. She was wearing a white dress patterned with colourful leaves with a white short-sleeved sweater over top of it that contrasted nicely with her skin, hair, and eyes.

"You don't... know who I am?" She looked taken aback and a little disturbed.

"No." I said flatly. "Should I?"

Once again, it was not entirely out of the realm of possibility since I had no memories. And to give credibility to the former theory, she felt familiar. So I knew I was acquainted with her at least.

The girl didn't look happy, though her happiness did not seem directed towards me. She looked around her, her frown deepening at what she saw.

"Don't bother." I said. I figured she was trying to look for something _other_ than darkness. "No matter how far you walk or look, you'll see the same thing."

I should know; the first thing I did when I woke up here was try to look for a way out. But no matter how much I walked, no matter how much I looked, I saw the same thing. Eventually I just didn't have the strength to walk any more and since then I've remained in the same spot even though I had long regained my strength.

"This is where you've been the entire time?" She demanded, a look of horror on her face.

I shrugged. "Yup."

It was almost surreal that I was having a calm conversation with this person despite the fact I still had no idea where the hell she had come from.

Her next expression was one of wariness. "And you're still… sane?" She put a lot of emphasis on the last part of the sentence.

"Were you expecting otherwise?"

She tilted her head slightly to the side as her dark eyes looked at me with scrutiny. "...most people would go insane in a place like this. And if you were unstable... no one would blame you."

I rolled my eyes. "I've had time to adjust. Besides, I'm not completely alone. The voices in my head keep me company as well." Then it hit me a second later just exactly how that sounded like and I slapped myself in the face for the wording of that phrase. She was already wary of my state of mind and I was sure that comment only confirmed _her_ theory of not being completely all there."Um, that came out wrong."

"Uh-huh." The girl said, looking at me like I was going to break out into insane laughter any minute now. "That response really didn't vouch for your sanity all that much."

"Oh, shut up." I snapped. "Excuse me for being surprised about you suddenly showing up out of the blue one day without any warning. Prior to you, all I've been doing is sleeping and staring into the darkness. Where did you even come from?"

Now that was the question that had been nagging me non-stop ever since this girl just showed up right in front of me. As grateful as I was for contact with another person, I also wanted to know how she was even in front of me right this moment. I was beginning to get tired of asking questions and getting no answers in reyutn.

"You're real, right?" I demanded. "You're not some figment of my imagination my mind came up with because I finally snapped?"

Because wouldn't that have been lovely? To think that I was talking to someone only to have it thrown into my face that this girl was something my crazed mind came up with in a moment of complete insanity.

She stared at me, incredulity all over her face. "Is that what you think?"

"That's pretty much the only explanation for why you would be standing right in front of me."

"And yet you're talking to me." She said in a deadpan voice. "Even though you suspect I'm a hallucination?"

"You talked to me first." I pointed out. "So are you real or not? Because you seem a little too…" I paused to try and find the word, "...lively for an illusion."

"That's… true." There was a contemplative tone in her voice. "And I'm not an illusion. I am very much real."

Then neither of us said anything after that. We were probably waiting for the other person to break the silence. Eventually I decided to take the initiative because one of us had to.

I stared at her as my mind worked at what was probably a hundred miles a minute. On one hand, if she was really an hallucination then her response would have been a result of my mind trying to fool me into thinking that she was real when she wasn't. On the other... she was telling the truth and that there was another person actually talking to me.

It wouldn't surprise me if it was the former. But if it was the latter-

-I didn't know what to think.

"You didn't answer my question." I sighed. "How did you even get here in the first place? I didn't even think there was a way out of here and I can't imagine anyone actually willingly wanting to come to this place."

Because darkness, darkness, darkness _everywhere._

It was definitely not a place sane people wanted to visit. Or anyone would visit willingly.

"Well I can tell you that it wasn't easy." She said as she crouched down in front of me, her own brown eyes staring right into mine. "Scratch that. It was as hard as fuck." There was a pained expression on her face. "The truth is, I was beginning to give up hope on ever finding you. I... thought that you had been permanently been destroyed."

I started. "Destroyed?"

The way she used the word was... disturbing. I don't think she was using the word destroyed as in the context of ' being dead' by more along the line of 'out right annihilation and no longer existing'.

"Yes, destroyed. But it turns out that you were just under so deep I couldn't even sense you."

"Uh... what?"

Her brown eyes turned towards me and I could see the contemplation in them as she watched me. I felt like a bug under a magnifying glass under her gaze.

"Tell me... do you know where we are?"

Was she serious?

"A really dark place." I deadpanned.

I expected her to roll her eyes in exasperation or just look plain exasperated, but instead she smirked at my answer. "I definitely wouldn't say you were wrong. I'm still amazed that you're as coherent as you are. Then again, resilience and mental fortitude were one of your strengths before everything went to hell."

As much as I wanted to know what she meant by the last part of her statement, I needed to stick with one path of questioning and not get sidetracked by the other things she said otherwise I was never going to get anywhere. But I made a mental note to ask about those things later. "So... where am I? Since _you_ seem to know have all the answers."

It pained me to admit it, but the girl right in front had the upper hand in this conversation. I detested on having to rely on her... but the reality of the situation was that I had no choice unless I wanted to remain in this hellish limbo. While I was resigned that I would never make it out of here, I wasn't going to hesitate to take any opportunity to leave.

Or at the very least have something else in my mind other than screams and glimpses of a burning city.

"Your soul." She said plainly as if she was telling me that we were taking a field trip to a plain full of beautiful flowers.

"What?" I flushed at the way my voice suddenly raised, but I couldn't help it. _My soul_?

That wasn't an answer I had been expecting.

"Right now we are in the darkest depths of your soul. We're so deep that I wasn't able to find you until now and that was only because I decided to drop in here to look for you out of desperation." She sighed. "I should have looked here earlier, but I didn't think that you would be this completely under. Then again... I suppose it was natural that you would retreat this far."

"What are you talking about?" I demanded.

Exactly what was 'natural' about 'retreating deep into my soul'? And what did she mean by me being 'deep within my soul' anyways?

And most damning ' _my soul_ '?

But instead of answering my question (was I expecting to actually get any answers from here) she just shook her head.

"There's no time." She said in a voice that was hard and left no room for any other discussion. "We have to leave. You can't stay here any more."

She reached forward and grabbed my arm. With surprising strength, she yanked me forward as if I hardly weighed a thing. I suddenly found myself standing up right on my feet... and staring down at her. Now that I got a good look at her, she was _really_ short and her youthful appearance made her look... child like? No, she looked older than a child. But she looked younger than the... aura she radiated.

"Wait, what?" I felt like I had been saying the word 'what' or adding it to the front of every sentence that left my mouth ever since she appeared, but I couldn't help it. "Why? What do you mean I have to leave?!"

"I'm sorry." And the girl looked absolutely apologetic and _genuinely sorry_. "I wish I could answer all of your questions, but there just isn't time. If you don't wake up _soon,_ Joker is going to have no choice but to bring you to prison because you've been inactive for so long. He won't want to, but he _is_ duty bound to do so because you aren't doing your job."

My head whirled at the sudden bombardment of words. She was both giving me information, while leaving me with a huge piling stack of questions that I felt needed answers to. And prison? I was in danger of being in prison? Wasn't I already imprisoned in this place?

And who was Joker?

I heard something fracture and looked around for the source of the noise, startled by the sudden sound. When I found it, I couldn't help but gape at what I was seeing.

To my amazement, I could see cracks in the darkness that had contained me for so long. What was once an impenetrable stronghold was now something that was becoming as fragile as glass.

Was this... did this mean that I was going to be free?

"Wait," I gripped on to her hand as tightly as I could, feeling my eyes burn with determination. I had a feeling that I wouldn't be able to see her for a long time. "Your name. What's your name?"

If we didn't have long to talk, then I wanted her to at least answer that question.

"I... don't really have a name. But if you need to call me something, then you should call me by the name that belonged to you a long time ago." She took a deep breath and said, "once upon a time you were called 'Kristin'. That is the name you may address me by."

"Kristin...?" I repeated. But as soon as the name passed through my lips, I heard a loud fracturing sound and felt the ground (?) underneath me give out.

The next thing I knew I was falling backwards and staring upwards at the darkness that had imprisoned me as I fell.

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The first thing that greeted me was the sound of birds chirping and singing as they went about their day. The songs they sang were literally music to my ears. Something cold and gentle brushed up against my skin, but the cool touch didn't bother me despite the fact that I could feel myself shivering. The gentle stimulus actually felt quite nice.

"Unh…"

Despite how heavy everything felt and how hard it was to move even so much as my fingers, I was finally able to open my eyes. It took me several tries and I would have probably given up if it hadn't been for a frightening desire to open my eye lids, but I eventually managed it. I had to blink several times to get rid of the heaviness that threatened to put me back to sleep, but I found that the struggle of keeping myself awake was well worth it.

Because the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was the sky. The next thing I noticed was my surroundings.

I was sitting on a chair, easily propped up against it so that I wouldn't fall off, I guess. But the fact that I was on a chair was a mere footnote as I took in the scenario in front of me. Even if it was through a window, seeing the sky, seeing the colour blue- it had been a long time since I had seen anything _but_ the colour black. My eyes soaked in the sight, only stopping momentarily when they started watering and I needed to blink again.

 _It was beautiful._

I eagerly sat up straighter in my chair, moving closer to get a better look when I heard something behind me.

The unexpected noise sounded an awful lot like someone choking on something. I turned away from from the sight reluctantly to see a tall man staring at me, his golden eyes wide as saucers. His mouth was open and I noticed with slight amusement that he seemed to be trying to close it but couldn't quite manage it.

I blinked several times before I decided to say something to break the tense silence.

"Um, hello?" I said hesitantly and in a soft tone as the poor man looked as if he was going to heave a heart attack right then and there. "Nice day, isn't it?"

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 **I am finally done the last prologue! So now we can get to the meat of the story (that truth be told I still have to plan out). But anyways, for a bit it's going to be an introduction to this strange new world our protagonist has woken up to before we can get a start on meeting some characters. And a few hints here and there about things that happened.**

 **BTW, your reviews are a sign that you love this story. As well as favoriting this or adding it onto your alerts. But I really appreciate your reviews because I want to know what you think about me work! So when you have the chance, please review!**


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